In the late 1960s, my parents were living in a part of the country that still didn't get BBC2. We also didn't have a colour TV. My cousins had both and so, whenever I stayed, I camped in front of their set and watched anything that happened to be showing on this most exotic of channels, so long as it was in colour. More often than not, that meant Jacques Cousteau and the crew of the Calypso, off on some fabulous underwater adventure. Probably because there were so many episodes (this sublime box set contains all 36), BBC2 must have reckoned it could show them on a loop almost indefinitely before anyone realised they had been watching repeats.

I had no real interest in marine biology, nor any clue just how groundbreaking these programmes were: not only did Cousteau pioneer much of the breathing apparatus that made subsea exploration possible, he was also one of the first people to both appreciate the delicate wonder of marine eco-systems and share his knowledge with the rest of the world. As I said, all I was interested in was the colour. But what colours there were: the bluest blues, the reddest reds, the indigoest indigos. Watching a Cousteau show felt like being at the movies.

For a generation weaned on David Attenborough and high-definition footage, the films may now feel a little rough and ready, a bit old-school natural history. But they have a passion and energy that many modern-day documentaries lack. Back in the 1960s, the oceans weren't a place of doom and gloom where everything was being plundered, polluted and destroyed. Or if they were, we didn't know much about it. Rather, they were mysterious new territory and Cousteau was their explorer-in-chief, sailing the seas for years on end – and in some style.

Not all the oceans, actually. He may have moved on to the colder, more desolate ones later in his career, but at the start of his adventures he never seemed to go anywhere the sun wasn't shining for at least 12 hours a day. His first Calypso cruise was almost exclusively confined to tropical waters and, this being the 1960s, no one ever seems to bother with suncream. Only real men sailed on the Calypso.

Cousteau made the oceans rock'n'roll. Well, his son Philippe did; in almost every episode, he's to be found playing soulful acoustic guitar against yet another ravishing sunset. Always in a red woolly hat, even in sweltering heat, Cousteau was like royalty: before the Calypso set sail, Princess Grace of Monaco actually presented him with a ship's dog. And, being French, he made sure his diving never got in the way of meal times. In fact, food and wine take almost equal precedence with the oceans in these films. No one is ever without a pipe or cigarette in their mouth, either. Except underwater, of course.

It's all gloriously un-PC. Sharks are hauled aboard and whacked over the head with a stick while the dog licks up the blood, and everyone goes for a ride on the back of giant tortoises. What's more, the music sounds like it's from the original Star Trek series and the narration's by Rod Serling, the voice of The Twilight Zone. All this and Cousteau's first three feature films from the 1950s, too. You couldn't ask for more. A glimpse of another world, both above and below the waves.